On Sun, Jul 26 2015, Mick wrote: > On Sunday 26 Jul 2015 17:06:11 Jc García wrote: >> 2015-07-26 9:33 GMT-06:00 Todd Goodman <t...@bonedaddy.net>: >> > I like and use VirtualBox a lot (and agree it's easy to use.) >> > >> > But the performance and USB handling mean that I need Windows or other >> > OS' on bare metal most of the time. I don't know how well Dell's crap^W >> > support stuff runs in a VM. >> >> The contrary experience here, USB has been the thing that got me to >> use VirtualBox many times, I have put usb drivers, printers, 3g >> modems, even adb trough the pass-trough feature of virtualbox, with no >> problems, in fact for some years for printing purposes I had to use a >> VM, and Virtualbox was the fastest to get working(click conect usb >> printer, install the windows drivers, print). I'm suspecting you also >> didn't run it with a very new computer, a server 2012 could run fine >> for testing some stuff, with 1 core limit and 512M RAM over here, >> using the virtualization capabilities of the processor. but I haven't >> dealt with DELL hardware. >> >> BTW, to Alan, I have never had to call to support for any laptop, but >> do they really have someone that could know more than you to help? I >> would seriously suspect most cases you are just talking to a call >> center agent whom clearly isn't doing a job that requires much >> knowledge about computers, that may be just reading some general >> 'reboot your pc' type instructions, and would likely suggest you to go >> to a professional technician at the arise of the slightest seemingly >> serious problem. But I might be wrong, and dell support could be >> awesome(I hardly think so, I know a lot of people who give support at >> call centers). > > Dell support are *very* good at selling you extended warranty, which is not > worth what you're paying for. Unless you are majorly unlucky - i.e. MoBo > blows up.
I cannot defend dell's pricing for support. I recently spoke to people at dell pro support who know much more about windows than I do (or want to). I admit this is a lowj bar. A number of years ago I had a hardware problem. They gave me some windows commands to run and when I reported the results they shipped the part. Perhaps someone came to install it or I did. I don't remember. Another time the laptop motherboard went bad. I don't think this required diagnostics. Someone came and replaced the board. allan
